


(don't) think twice

by recycledstars



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recycledstars/pseuds/recycledstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And really, no matter who’s in the control room, it’s still her, in his ear and in his head. He imagines all the things she’d say, what she’d think of everything he’s doing and she’d hate the show the new EP does. If he gave more of a shit he would too.</i> </p><p>Will's not really all that good at moving on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(don't) think twice

**Author's Note:**

> This started out a joke because [I made Will McAvoy a (cracktastic) break up playlist](http://8tracks.com/recycledstars/cheer-up-emo-kid) because that’s just the kind of friend that I am. And I swear, once upon a time it was a similarly amusing justification of song choices in fic form. (A justiFICation if you will.) Now it’s sort of – less funny, more earnest than I thought it would be. Though [missymeggins](http://archiveofourown.org/users/missymeggins) said it was “poignant” so you can take that or leave it. 
> 
> I recommend listening to the mix because it puts it _in historical context_ , though this is certainly not the _best possible form of the argument_ because there is Roxette. 
> 
> Also because this follows track order it’s not one hundred percent chronological. All takes place between when Will and Mac break up and when the show begins, canon compliant.

He throws her out, even though it’s late and she’s half-dressed because he hasn’t really heard a word after _I wouldn’t even call it an affair really_. Because he doesn’t care what the fuck she’d call it, if it quacks like a duck and your girlfriend was fucking her ex-boyfriend for four months then it’s probably not an issue where semantics matter. 

And he really can’t be around her, because she’s just landed a punch and he’s just about hurt and angry and knocked senseless enough to throw one back. 

(He will always and never be his father.) 

So he kicks her out, says nothing because there is _nothing to say_ , leans against the door and tries to remember how to fucking _breathe_ because she could not possibly have just told him –

Except that she did and he’ll never be able forget it. MacKenzie, who’s always been guileless, or at least, transparent about her guile, who is the most honest person he’s ever met, intimidating in her refusal to pretend she’s invulnerable. He didn’t even think she knew how to lie, except to her parents when she thinks they’ll disapprove.

He’s slow to realize the buzzing from the hall is his phone, and she’s already called him ten times. 

He hits ‘ignore’ and throws it across the room so hard the battery falls out.

And then he doesn’t speak to her for three years.

 

*

 

He holds onto the anger because it’s easier, gets him through, even if he takes it out on the staff a little more than he should. 

(To be fair, he takes it out on other things too, his liver for one, the box of her stuff in the hall that he keeps tripping over and giving a few extra kicks for good measure, a set of perfectly good tumblers they bought together.)

But that’s all inanimate objects and internal organs that bear misdirected anger a lot better than actual people. _People_ complain to HR and land him in Charlie’s office, getting a serve of his own medicine.

“Are you drunk?” Charlie asks him after several other rhetorical questions laced with expletives.

“No. I was. But that was several hours ago now and I’m starting to wish that it wasn’t.”

“You can’t fire every EP I hire because they’re not Ma–”

“It’s not because of that. ” 

But it is because of that, because when it was _her_ – she just knew, when to save him and when to let him loose. They just _worked_ , on every level, and he misses her on all of them too. In his defense he’s been trying to replace her in every other aspect with similar success and turnover rate but he doesn’t tell Charlie that.

And really, no matter who’s in the control room, it’s still her, in his ear and in his head. He imagines all the things she’d say, what she’d think of everything he’s doing and she’d _hate_ the show the new EP does. If he gave more of a shit he would too.

“He’s always talking in my ear.”

“That’s his job.” 

He huffs something that’s not really agreement but he knows he has to concede the point. 

“Look. I don’t know what the fuck happened, but she left. It’s been three months.” Charlie stands and leans against the desk with both hands and actually manages to look incredibly menacing for a moment. “Get it the _fuck_ together.”

But he pours them both an inch of bourbon, even though it’s eleven in the morning.

(So, he’s surviving, getting by, kind of badly, but still.)

 

*

 

The problem is all songs are love songs. He’s never noticed it before and the sad ones are bad but the happy ones are worse. He can’t go anywhere without hearing something that reminds him of her and it’s undignified, trying to pretend you’re not breaking down in front of a box of the granola she used to buy in the cereal aisle at three in the fucking morning.

He’s starting to really hate her and FM radio.

 

*

 

The staff leave and not even one by one and that confirms every suspicion he’s ever had that they liked her more than him. Not that he blames them. He’s never really _liked_ himself either, it was more of a mild tolerance and lately he’s been working up to full-blown self-loathing.

To torture himself he chains smokes and listens to all her messages staring at the endless sky behind the haze and lights of the city, all the _I’m sorry_ s and _let me explain_ s and _I love you_ s, and the last one from the night she left where she’s not even speaking, just crying down the line. 

And all he can think is _good_ , he’s glad she’s miserable and he hates himself for that. Of the two of them she was the only one that was good. Better half jokes aside, she was his.

It feels good that she regrets it. Maybe more than he does.

It’s summer, still hot in the middle of the night, but even though there’s no reason not to anymore he’s stopped smoking inside the apartment.

(She tolerated the cigarettes, but she hated him smoking inside and after it became a habit it became a ritual, and now it’s where he does most of his thinking.)

Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep she’d join him, curl up in his lap and put out his cigarette and pester him to share whatever it was he was thinking about. But more often she’d be curled up in bed. So this is where he was always alone and it’s one of the only places he doesn’t notice her absence.

 

*

 

He’s started to consider the possibility he might have done something that made her do it. Lord knows he’s not the easiest person to be with.

He examines it all like he’s trying the case: plays it over and over, re-reads two years worth of her e-mails even as he ignores the new ones.

For someone so proud of graduating from Cambridge she had a steadfast loyalty to T. S. Eliot and the Oxford comma and she’d hate him for pointing it out. But the things she said, even back in 2005, they’d barely been together a year and she writes _sometimes I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anybody else_.

Which sounds real pretty but feels a little empty, in retrospect.

It’s all a colossal waste of time of course, because he’d still swear they were happy and even if there were signs it doesn’t matter much because he didn’t see them at the time. 

In the end it all feels like a waste of time. He’s certainly worse for it. 

 

*

 

He might’ve cried. But they were manly tears. And they certainly weren’t to Harry Nilsson, drunk at two in the morning.

 

*

 

Someone’s singing karaoke at Hang Chew’s, thank _fuck_ it’s not him, but he feels like a kindred spirit to the poor drunk fool slowly breaking down into the microphone.

(Must have been love, still is. He wishes, almost more than anything, that it were over.)

 

*

 

She leaves and anger fades but she’s everywhere in his apartment. So in the beginning he spends a lot of time lying face down on the couch. That turns out to be a terrible plan, for his state of mind, sure, but more noticeably, for the state of his back. 

After the couch-lying phase, he’s at a loss. All his days used to be filled with her. When there’s not work there’s just nothing; he can’t remember what it was like before her, what he used to with all this _time_.

(And he keeps finding her things everywhere. She was never fastidiously tidy, which used to drive him crazy. Not that he is either but he’s a hypocrite and other people’s mess irks him. He’d sort of gotten used to hers though. So. He finds little bits of her and they sting and maybe it’s a little better each time but it was pretty fucking bad to start with so that doesn’t matter all that much.)

He spends a lot of time wandering around the apartment like he’s lost in it, which he is in a way. 

And he decides that he really needs to get out more.

(He doesn’t really know what to do with himself there either because so many of the women are perfectly _nice_ but he can’t really talk to any of them. The ones who do talk politics don’t like his and with the others it’s nothing more than superficial and what he really needs to talk about is how his ex-girlfriend completely wrecked him, just straight up hollowed him out, removed any vestiges of a normal ability to love that remained after his violent childhood and lonely adolescence and reminded him that he’s always felt like he didn’t belong anywhere. 

But that feels kind of heavy for a first date.)

 

*

 

For months they have plans, little things here and there, little things that are huge fucking reminders that they had a life together before she left. Every time he thinks they’re finally over there’s one more.

(She got to leave and he hates her for _that_ too, for being able to walk away and start over and live without all the things that are the same but not the same.)

There are tickets to the theatre and the Yankees (a compromise she agreed to so he’d see Stoppard with her so she even manages to ruin baseball season which is just _cruel_ ) and a wedding (of all things) and a weekend to visit his sister.

All the rest he cancels or rips up and throws in the trash, because he’s not above being melodramatic or becoming a stereotype. These days he’s not much above anything. But he goes to Chicago anyway.

He tells his sister the entire story and they get fall down drunk. His sister is the only person alive who might be more miserable than he is and that’s why he loves her so much. Well, that and her vinyl collection. 

She plays Elvis and says some truly horrible things about MacKenzie, which he doesn’t think she means but it’s nice of her – nobody else has a harsh word. 

(They think he’s petty and mean and it’s just _one of those things_ , which it’s not but he might be and he doesn’t fucking care. He shouldn’t have thought she was perfect, that wasn’t fair, but she _was_ , until she wasn’t. 

And now she’s on the other side of the world trying to get herself killed and he doesn’t think he should have to apologize for being angry about that. It’s not that he still cares, just, he’ll be really pissed off if she dies.)

 

*

 

He gets used to it, gets better at pretending: to be fine, to have moved on.

Even though he prefers to drink alone in the dark apartment, somehow there are still women and enough of them to start building a reputation.

The flip side to _no news is bad news_ is that all news is good news and he thinks it’s a sick indictment on society that it boosts their ratings.

Reese Lansing takes over on the 44th floor and now that they’re pulling 2 million viewers he’s worthy of the president of the company’s time. 

There are a lot of suggestions to push the numbers higher and he takes all of them because it’s such concrete evidence that he’s not a complete fuck up and if 2 million people love him then does it really matter if nobody who actually knows him does? 

(She’d hate all the suggestions from upstairs. Letting the show become a joke is ruining the last of everything they ever did together and that’s fine by him. It’s been two years and he doesn’t really think of her all that often, certainly doesn’t give a shit about her approval.

That all goes to hell of course. He honestly, really doesn’t think of her all that often, just when there are wire stories that he hopes aren’t about her. But this one is: she gets stabbed. Word is that CNN pulls the plug. 

She calls him when she’s back home, mostly safe, mostly sound. He doesn’t pick up and she doesn’t leave a message.)

 

*

 

The thing is – and yes, it’s the third time he’s read through the sum total of their correspondence – she had to be lying. Not just in the vague, not-mentioning-the-whole-truth way. The actual, say-one-thing-to-his-face, fuck-her-ex-boyfriend-behind-his-back way. 

It was during a break, he sends her: _Are you coming home with me tonight?_

 _You’ll never miss me_ , she replies. 

_I miss you right now._

_Sap. I know you’re just sweet-talking so I’ll agree to you keeping me up all night._

_I mean every word. And I make no promises about all night. Couple of hours, tops._

_You’re back in ten, put down your fucking phone. (I’m tired, but I promise I’ll say a proper goodnight after the show.)_

He has no idea how anybody could do that. It’s not really the _cheating_ that he can’t understand. It’s that either she didn’t mean a word she was saying and she’s an actress as well as a liar (because it felt like she meant it, it really did, and he’s not the most trusting when it comes to these things), or she did mean it. And she still … _to his face_ , telling him she was going places and doing things she wasn’t.

(All the while she _was_ doing her ex-boyfriend and he knows she was lying about it because between work and everything else there was hardly any time they weren’t together.)

He was so in love with her and she knew it. She also knew he thought he loved her more than she loved him and she spent so long trying to convince him it wasn’t true. Then she went and undid it all and he still can’t figure out why.

 

*

 

She called him almost every day for six months before she went to Iraq:

_Hi, Atlanta’s fine. I miss New York, I miss you._

and –

 _I saw the show tonight, fire whoever it was who put you in that tie and then burn it for good measure._

and –

_If you ask me to stop calling you I will._

and –

 _I saw the show tonight, it’s pronounced Meetterrond, long e not a short i._

And then, in a completely different tone of voice, in the middle of the day –

 _We finally closed the deal I’ve been trying for with CNN, so I’m taking a team to Iraq for twelve months on Tuesday. I wanted to tell you, in case you heard it from someone else._ She hesitates. _You can call me, any time. I won’t think that it means anything. Anyway. Like I said, I just wanted to tell you myself._

A week later:

 _Will._ A long pause and a nervous laugh. _I don’t know what to say. This is it, I guess. We’re_ – (to someone else) – _I’m coming, I’ll just be a minute. They’re calling our flight. I wanted you to be the last person I said goodbye to. I felt … like it would be good luck._ She laughs. _It’s silly. You’re still the last person I want to leave._

It went on.

 _Not that it matters. I wanted to say._ A breath. _I wanted to say that I’m sorry for what I did. I know you probably think that I didn’t, but I did love you. I do, still love you, so much. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. You know, you’re the greatest man I’ve ever known. I don’t know why you do it, but you pretend that you’re not sometimes. Please. Don’t do that because of me. Don’t pretend - maybe it’s that you think that you’re not, but you are, you can be. I just… wanted to be sure you knew all that. I have to go._

And then –

 _Goodbye_.

The first time he’d ever heard her say the word. 

(She had a bit of a superstition about it, always left her conversations open ended or with the promise of talking again. A childhood habit: her father was always leaving and she was always afraid she’d never see him again. _Never say goodbye unless you mean it_ was what she told him once.)

It sounds like she means it.

Chain-smoking in the middle of the night he listens to it again and thinks, _fare thee well_.

 

*

 

(He’ll deny under pain of death that he’s ever listened to Phil Collins.)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Some footnotes because when I do details I like gold stars.
> 
> Most of the references are to songs in the mix. But non-song related details:
> 
> T. S. Eliot went to Oxford, and yes, I just ganked a poet who did for purposes of this joke. The Oxford comma thing has been hanging around in a word document waiting for a home for a while now so it needed a partner. I’m not really a fan myself so I have no idea what MacKenzie would have been quoting in her e-mails. 
> 
> Stoppard was originally Shakespeare but I feel like that kind of theatre Will could deal with (even if he did leverage it for company at sporting events) but Stoppard is definitely ~~tit-for-tat~~ (that sounds entirely less PG than how I mean it) compromise territory because, absurdist theatre? I can’t decide if it’s _Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead_ or _Travesties_ , if you care it can be up to you. (I head canon that Mac has some more literary tastes from her time at Cambridge.)
> 
> Mac’s correcting his French when she says “Meetterrond” referring to François Mitterrand, former French President who .... [at best didn’t really do a whole lot to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and worst maybe even encouraged it?](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/paris-trial-elysee-rwanda-genocide) That came out due to documents declassified in July 2007. (I also head canon that she speaks pretty decent French.) 
> 
> I rabbit on about the things I write sometimes, so if you’re interested in watching me cut it open to look at its insides there's [a more comprehensive dissection](http://littlebitsofmad.livejournal.com/1220.html) at my blog where I write about writing.


End file.
